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notscientific writes "Each wolf has a unique howl, which scientists can now decipher through voice recognition (audio), allowing them to identify wolves individually. The scientists developed sound analysis code that can tell which wolf is howling with 100% accuracy. Previously, pitch was used to tell wolves apart, but these only achieved a relatively low accuracy rate. This sound analysis is important because it could well give researchers the first proper way to effectively monitor wolves in the wild. Interestingly, this research comes after the recent finding that dolphins have names for one another. In the case of wolves, their howls are essentially their names."

Great, so they've learned to recognize individual wolf voices, what does that have to do with names? A name, like any noun, is an abstract representation of someone(thing) not present. Dolphins each have a distinct whistle that other dolphins use to attract their attention - which seems an awful lot like a name to me. In this case all they've done is figure out which wolf is "talking", and recognizing the voices of important individuals is something we know pretty much every vocal species does - parents and offspring almost always, and often mates and other family members as well.

I didn't RTFA, but I could see them proving it's a name fairly easily. For example, when a family has 2 dogs for a while, and one dies, the other dog is quite visibly affected by their death. If the next night, you hear the living dog using the howl that the now-dead dog normally used, you could quite easily say they're calling a name.

Right. Or maybe it's like a child singing his mother's lullaby to himself after she's gone. You can *say* anything you want, but you need a strong evidence to make a scientific claim.

A more solid case would be Wolf A using Wolf B's howl to get Wolf B's attention and nobody else's, like dolphins do with their identifying whistles. Dirt simple solid argument, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the technological development discussed in the article. Well, other than the fact that the ability to identify individual wolves from their howl will make it much easier to listen in on their "conversations" and discover things like name usage, *if* it exists.

Finish reading the paragraph. As I said that *would* be a name, if it happened - but so far as I know there's no evidence of such behavior among wolves. Certainly the article doesn't suggest anything like that.

How so? A name would seem to suggest some level of abstract reasoning - a "lullaby" or other remembrance would only seem to suggest an emotional response to the death of a loved one and some capability of mimicry, and we've pretty well established that most vertebrates appear to possess emotions much like our own, and many of the "higher" animals appear to grieve over the death of a loved one and can learn through mimicry.

Because imitating each others' howls would sound like a very confusing thing to do.

Um, they don't call each other, they just listen to know who else is in the area.

PS: This is a junk article that's just tagging along on the dolphin story (which is interesting/new). Pretty much all group animals can recognize others by sound (parents/babies need to find each other in crowds).

No, they said the wolves have unique calls - aka voices. I'd bet that each wolf is perfectly capable of recognizing the voices of those important to them, just like we can recognize the voice of a loved one even in a crowded bar where we can't understand their words.

It has has nothing whatsoever to do with names though - that's just sensationalism.

Open your ears mate, even in the city the birds are talking to each other all day long. It's how they stay together in a stable social group without being on top of each other. Their language may not be as flexible as human language but announcing or responding to a "name" is a basic need for all social animals. Still I find these studies interesting because of the evidence they present on different species of social animals. Also I had a retriever many moons ago that knew the difference between a "sing" co

Dogs can allegedly understand around 170-400 human words, give or take depending on the breed.
Anyway, I heard from a reliable source on the internet that all birds are actually saying "Ooh, it's 4:00 AM. Time to not shut the fuck up!"

A name is something OTHERS use to identify you. If I read the summary right (no need to read that article), they are not suggesting that OTHER wolves are imitating a howl to identify another wolf.Said differently: the howl is like a fingerprint (although an audible one) in that it can be used to identify the owner of said howl.

What are you talking about? I wasn't pointing out a grammar flaw. I was pointing out that people have read too much into the research. The only error I can see is where I've used the wrong word - something I do fairly often - but that's nothing to do with grammar either.

The idea of a name is that you can use it to refer to a third party even when that party isn't present, ie. imitating another's 'fingerprint' so that you can be sure you are both referring to the same person. The wolves don't do that, they are just capable of recognising certain howls as belonging to certain owners, much like recognising somebodies face.

Which has precisely zero relevance to names unless a wolf other than Arooooogaaaaahgrumble! used his howl. (Which is the case with our names and dolphin signature whistles) It's more like someone standing on a hill calling out "Come and get it!" and only their family comes in for lunch because they recognized the caller's voice. And even that isn't directly implied by the article, which is only saying that a scientist on the next hill over can record the call and identify who was making it - though it's b

Now, think about that. If you call out "Geoff Pullum!" in a crowded street, and I'm there within earshot, I'm likely to turn round and look at you. But what I am not likely to do is yell "Geoff Pullum!" back at you."

That article does absolutely nothing to refute dolphins use of names, except that they don't use them exactly like we do. In fact hepoints out the very fact that they *are* names used by others to get the owner's attention:

His argument: Dolphin A whistles "B" and Dolphin B whistles back "B", whereas Person A calls out "B" and Person B calls out "what", or crosses the street to talk. But the point is that any dolphin can make a sound that *specifically* gets the attention of B, and no one else. Dolphin B

But the point is that any dolphin can make a sound that *specifically* gets the attention of B, and no one else.

There was no evidence of the above. Instead they found

The researchers found that individuals only responded to their own calls, by sounding their whistle back.

To show dolphins have names you would need to find evidence that dolphins mimic each others whistles. You would need to record Dolphin A whistling Dolphin Bs whistle and Dolphin B responding. But they didn't do that.

Your assertion still holds that they did not directly show dolphins using names to call one another - but they did observationally identify individual signature whistles that seem to be associated with particular individuals and are used by their podmates. And when playing back synthetic reproductions (not recordings,

"That article does absolutely nothing to refute dolphins use of names, except that they don't use them exactly like we do." Your second clause refutes your first clause: a name is something that's used in a particular way, either to call to the hearer (as a vocative) or to refer to a third person. (In some languages, and in "motherese", the speaker can also use a name to refer to themselves.) So if they're not using these calls the way we use names, the calls are by definition not names. They may be som

Notice the "...exactly like we do". I agree with your point completely, my point is simply that the "refutation" did nothing to attack the use of signal whistles as names, only that dolphin vocabulary/cultural behavior is not an exact match for our own, which is to be expected. If I heard my name called out my first response would not be to call my own name back. A CB operator on the other hand does something very similar "Calling FSM, come in please FSM"... "This is FSM, who is this please?", which cons

First of all, strange wording - I'd have gone with "Wolves Use Unique Howls As Names."

More importantly, no-one - except for a commenter on one of the articles - is suggesting that wolves use these as names. You could get 50 people to stand on a hill and shout "I love monkeys!" and still get a computer to tell them apart, but that wouldn't be a name.

Is probably what they're saying most of the time. At the risk of sounding trite, I expect that the return howls are mostly just 'So glad you are!'.

They're not discussing Plato or the recipe for fondue, they're wolves. If there's any content in the howl it's going to be things like 'I'm hungry!' or 'Who wants some?' or 'Deer party at Blacktail's den!'

FWIW, wolves do emit different types of howl - a given wolf won't produce the same howl each time.

Although nobody can say for sure what the meaning is, wolves will make different types of howl if they're separated from their pack, if they've completed a kill, if they're about to "rally" with the pack and, interestingly, if a wolf dies.

For general howling, then yes, it's been known about for years that you can identify a given wolf by their howl. My old adopted wolf Kenai (who lived at the same wolf centre as the original research author used for their studies) had a very recognizable two-tone howl.

You won't hear a wolf bark very often (and it tends to be distinct "wuff"s rather than a long, continuous series of barks - Mosi at the UKWCT barks if a particular person comes into the centre) but certainly with howls you can that there are different scenarios. For example, the wolves at the UKWCT will do long chorus howls when the nearby church bells ring, but if you take one particular wolf out she'll howl a few times when she's out of sight of the other wolves - presumably to let them know she's still a

The links you posted did nothing to "debunk" the idea of Dolphins using language as the person admits they're not a zoologist only a language blogger who has at most read a few news articles on the subject of dolphin's language abilities.

Wrong. If you want to show that something is language, then you need a linguist, not a biologist. The zoologist can do the recording, but doesn't know what a linguist knows about language. And contrary to your assertion, the linked-to bloggers (Geoff Pullum and Mark Liberman) are both PhD linguists, in fact well known among linguists. (And just in case you're wondering, my BS is in zoology, and my PhD is in linguistics.)

...given the neurological complexity of the brains of dolphins and whales, which is comparable to humans

Interesting, but is it possible that the younger pups were just playing, while as they got older deeper hunting instincts were kicking in and they used those tactics?

Oh, I've no doubt the behaviour is instinctual - they were definitely honing their skills on me. The thing that makes me wonder is "how did they decide which wolf would have which role" - there has to have been something which made them decide that the male would ensnare me while the females went in for the "kill".

I've no idea, from what little I've read (my intro to wolf culture was Mowat's book and later his original paper and notes) how they develop their various hunting techniques. I'd guess that a few are practised by play, but where the playbook comes from is up for grabs. The idea that anything that complicated can be carried as some sort of gene memory is frowned upon, but it's still an easy thing to pick for an explanation. (How the hell else does a bird know how to build a

I don't think you have to assume that there is a little BS here. "Unique Howls Are What Wolves Use As Names" is really misleading when all they are really talking about is being able to recognize individual wolves by their calls. It is like saying that your name is how you pronounce the letter 'r'.